


hell and back

by pinebundles



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Eventual Fluff, F/F, F/M, Joniss - Freeform, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 22:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4722605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinebundles/pseuds/pinebundles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>johanna and katniss have history.</p><p>(the joniss road trip au no one asked for)</p>
            </blockquote>





	hell and back

A small trembling collapsed the silence of the room. The stillness, the solidity ruined as the vibrations increased, seeping into her unconscious state. She parted her eyelids with a groan when she realized that the buzzing wasn't going to stop, a conclusion to a decision she didn't want to make. Her hands skated along the smooth fabric of her sheets, warmth from where her weight had lain contrasting the cool temperature of her fingertips. With a sigh of frustration when she discovered that she couldn't reach the source without sitting up, she did, only to hit her head on the angled ceiling on the way up.

She certainly didn't remember having a slanted ceiling, she thought as her free hand circled the aching spot on the crown of her head.

She punched the touch screen of her phone with her thumb, not bothering to look at the caller identification even if she could have read it through her hazy, freshly awoken vision.

Her surroundings startled her for a minute when her sight cleared, she mumbled a somewhat confused but hushed greeting something along the lines of, "your house better be on fucking fire," (the underlying threat of the statement lost in her raspy, sleep sodden tone) before pulling herself out of the bed. Free of the burden of her weight, the mattress springs hissed a metallic sound a of distress.

There was a cautious breath on the other end of the line, not incomparable to the moan of the floorboards underneath her weight. "Oh, man, I'm sorry, I forgot you were on east coast time now, did I wake you?"

Johanna sighed, scooping a shirt off the ground and holding it up to a minimal source of light, before discarding it once more. "Yeah, no shit. Talk fast, I have an early shift in the morning," she said, the impatience in her tone more evident than necessary, but she had never been a morning person.

She tucked her phone between her shoulder and her ear, nudging it with her chin when it slipped against her skin and picking up another article of clothing, sliding it over her head and taking her phone back into her hand to get her arms through the sleeves. "Johanna, do you even have a job?" Johanna bit her lip to hold back a lie. "Holy shit, you have someone over right now, don't you?" The voice on the other end chirped, she could hear his smirk through the phone, she rolled her eyes.

More like someone had _her_ over.

She threw a glance over her shoulder to the figure nestled in the bed she'd previously departed, snuggled tightly in the blankets, her breathing calm, still dormant, she sighed with relief. "Sorry, none of my business." (Johanna held back the "you're right, it's not," that danced on the tip of her tongue.) "Anyway, Annie and I are renting a beach house in San Diego next week, we were wondering if you would like to join us." He asked, his voice had a rare tremble to it, as if he knew what kind of uneven ground he was treading on, like he had foreshadowed Johanna's reaction and tried to deal with it ahead of time. Cautious. Measured.

"Finnick, I know you didn't call me at two in the morning to ask me if I wanted to haul my ass out to California for the weekend," Johanna said, her voice was feral, venomous, strained with self control.

"Johanna, please, I know it's not exactly ideal, but I haven't seen you in a year," it was a different approach, she'd heard him use the tone before ordering coffee at cafes and asking professors for extensions on papers. Johanna sighed, it was almost a growl. She paced the room to find the remainder of her clothing, her weight balanced on the tips of her toes, her steps considerate of the squeaky floor boards and her bedmate. "I'm thinking of asking Annie to marry me, and I'd like you to be there." He said, his voice more hushed than previously. She didn't respond as she slid on more articles of clothing. "What else have you got to do? Besides have one night stands and drink yourself to death?"

"What's wrong with that? I'm a college student on break." She mumbled. "You sound like my mother, or, you would, if she were alive," she added after a beat, it was almost bitter.

He sighed into his phone. She smirked.

"There's another person we invited, a girl that lives near you, make a road trip out of it. Split the gas and hotel fees and driving time with them. You can make it by the end of the week. It'll be fun, come on," he said, Johanna let the scenario play out in her head while she grabbed her bag off of a chair in the room adjacent from the bedroom and when she didn't respond Finnick threw in a plea of, "Please, this is important to me." She grabbed one shoe, steadying herself on the wall to slide it on and then (after some searching) did the same with the other.

Johanna sighed, opening the door at the end of the room, its hinges howling a quiet reluctance and padding down a flight of stairs. Her hands coasted down the handrails, the black paint chipped to reveal silver metal, the texture was comforting, it brought back memories of picking the flaking paint off of things with her fingernails, stripping them until they revealed their true colors. She recalled a specific memory or picking the red paint off of the wooden handle of her father's hatchet when they went camping. "Who's the chick?" She asked, pushing another door open at the bottom of the stairs and stepping into the warm night. The heat earlier in the day wouldn't have been unbearable if it weren't for the heavy humidity, but the night provided a cool comfort and there was a soft wind that mussed the stray hairs that hung loose from where it was tied.

"Do you remember the kids that sat with us at lunch and dinner sometimes? They were freshmen when I was a junior and you were a sophomore."

Johanna groaned. "How could I forget."

"It's Katn-"

"Finnick, you _didn't,_ " she almost spat.

"Johanna, please, she's not that bad. What'd she ever do to you, anyway? Just give her another cha-" The rest of Finnick's rambling words fell on a dead line after Johanna stabbed the 'end call' button on her phone and checked the time, 2:23 am, she groaned. She tucked her phone into her back pocket and dug through her backpack for her keys, hooking her finger around the key ring and pulling them out.

She surveyed the parking lot of the complex, slightly dazed by the conversation and probably the alcohol she had consumed previously in the night.

The lot looked familiar, from the worn white lines of parking spots to the one street lamp who's yellow filtered light flickered at uneven intervals of time to the faded green and blue graffiti against the brown brick of the adjacent building.

It took her a second to register that it was because the spray painted building closest to the inconsistent street light was that she called her home, go figure, she'd slept with someone who was practically her neighbor.

She heaved a particularly loud sigh and plodded in the direction of the door, seeing her car tucked haphazardly into a parking spot. It hadn't been her car for all that long, she'd bought it after she had been named the beneficiary to her parents' life insurance funds. She'd been hesitant with the money at first, almost disgusted with it, she'd dropped it in a savings account and not thought twice about it until she had to start paying off her college fees.

Johanna had always had impulse control issues, but impulse buying a car was probably the most severe it had gotten. It was a late model, steel blue Jeep Renegade, she'd bought it used as a demo car after doing some research so it wasn't _exactly_ an impulse buy, but it could be considered one. She punched the lock button on her key fob and padded to the front of the building, where she was greeted by the image of one of her neighbors sitting on the steps, some of the finer details of her face obstructed by shadow, but Johanna recognized from her distinctive tattoos, there was a lit cigarette tucked in between her fingers, she watched as smoke billowed out of her mouth.

They exchanged a wordless nod of a greeting, the girl shimmied to the side so Johanna could get through, but she sank down onto the stairs next to the girl instead of taking the direct path through the door, propping her elbows on her knees.

"Rough night?" The girl asked, raising the cigarette to her lips and taking a quick drag.

Johanna traced the designs of the smoke she exhaled with her eyes. "I wish I could remember the first half." She replied, rubbing her stinging eyes with her knuckles.

The woman chuckled, putting the cigarette out on the brick of the stairs and discarding the butt on the cement below them, Johanna frowned in distaste.

"You look tired," she commented, Johanna grunted.

She surveyed the other girl, her eye's trained on something in the distance, her fingers playing with a loose string on the collar of her shirt. Johanna wondered if the fabric smelled like cigarette smoke.

"So do you." She deadpanned.

"I'm stoned, what's your excuse?"

"I'm going on a road trip to California with my night stand from two months ago."

That caught her attention.

She made an almost inverse hissing sound and shot Johanna a sympathetic glance. "That's rough," she said, her eyes scanning over her.

Johanna could only imagine what she saw.

She laughed, a short chuff and noticed how close the once distant sound off traffic was, took inventory of the sirens and the prolonged purr of an engine acceleration and squealing tires.

"Yeah," she said, her voice was honest, raw even, despite the short fragment.

"Were you in love with her?"

Johanna shrugged. "I don't really _do_ love."

"Why?"

In any other situation, the question would make Johanna grind her teeth or lash out.

"Love is weird." She sighed, breathing in the night air, it felt a few degrees cooler than it was before, she let herself wonder how long she'd been there. "It's like... fuck," she cradled her head in her hands, trying to figure out how she was going to put it into words. "It's like this, everyone has these terms and conditions on their love, they don't visualize it though, they can't follow through. They paint this picture of what they want, of who they want, and then they forget to draw themselves into it. It's like love isn't for them, like it's just a box you check." She took a breath. "I think that you fall in love with things about people, but no one ever falls in love with the entire person, I don't want that, I don't want to fall in love with the idea of someone, so I don't."

"That sounds a lot like someone that's been in love," she said, and Johanna gaped after her as she stood up and walked through the door, the slam of it accenting the quiet, humming soundtrack of the night.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and pressed the redial button next to Finnick's name.

"I knew you'd reconsider."

"Just tell me when to pick her up."

"I'll text you the details." After a second of slightly rigid silence he added, "Hey, I love you."

Johanna sighed, sick of that word, and killed her end of the line and got up from her perch on the stairs, the fabric of her pants snagging against the brick and tested the stability of the railing with her hands, squeezed the metal hard and exhaled and then walked through the door of the condominium complex.

It was a small complex, only 12 condos inside, two of which were empty, the tenants all kept to themselves, she and the tattooed girl were the only people her age in the complex, the girl's room was three doors to the right and opposite to her own.

She climbed the stairs, the corridor was desolate and looked almost sterile with the white filtered light and white tile floors and walls.

The sound of her heels on the tile startled her, the echo stuck around as if to mock her, she climbed the stairs with practiced ease, shouldering the door at the top of the stairs open and walking down the hallway, the corridor was heavy with heat and she felt herself breaking into a sweat as she made her way to her door.

No wreaths hung there like others in the hallway, not even the designated number hung any longer, it had fallen off after a few too many slammed doors, it stood against the wall, an angular 7. She poked a key at the lock, grunting and flipping it when it didn't fit. She jammed it in successfully and turned it, kicking it open and stepping inside.

Johanna dumped her bag next to the door and stumbled into the single bedroom adjacent to the living room and kitchen, barely changing her course to avoid the couch sat in the middle of the room on the way.

She'd started leasing the condo short term after her previous semester, needed somewhere to go that wasn't quite _home_ for summer. It had been spur of the moment but the owner had been kind and understanding after she spilled her sob story, she got her wrapped around her finger within seconds. Told her that she'd been raised in Washington state and moved to Virginia until she went back to Washington for school, and that she'd returned after her parents died to feel closer to them. Which, was mostly the truth, aside from the latter portion of the story. She hadn't moved back for her parents (or lack thereof), but she needed something to develop a strong selling point, and she knew that would do it.

She'd lived off campus during the school year,  the apartment had been furnished aside from small things, and the Virginia condo had been that way too, she'd taken her bare necessities and some knick knacks she'd brought from home. Most of her things had been left at her parents' house, she wondered who was cleaning it out, if her aunts and uncles and cousins and people she didn't know or couldn't recall were putting her things and the things her parents had left her in boxes and scrambling to find an address to ship it to, only to come up short. She hadn't kept in contact with her distant family, but neither had her parents.

Johanna had never had much luck with family, she thought, but it was easier that way, less hearts to break, less fake exchanges and false proclamations of adoration.

She collapsed onto her bed, kicking her shoes off at the side, just out of the way and ungracefully falling into the mattress, sinking into it, the mattress was stiff but she'd bought some foam to circumvent that.

Her sheets still smelled faintly like laundry detergent, she'd started washing them religiously, something to pass the time and make her feel productive.

For the first time in what Johanna felt was quite a while, or at least in her time, she let thoughts of the girl wage war on her mind, knowing that it would plague any hope of falling asleep in the remote future.

She'd always thought that something about the girl had been contradictory, Johanna had found that she had become infatuated with this detail, that she could never quite figure out how she pulled it off, how things that were supposed to be laid out as some sort of juxtaposition could become so symmetrical.

Katniss was a puzzle Johanna could never quite solve, it made her desperate in some ways.

Her captivation had perhaps began on the day the girl walked into her life (as had many others, no doubt, with the attention she drew), the brazen glint in her eye betraying her almost severe demeanor. She was breathtaking. Her hair had been wound into a seemingly effortlessly intricate braid somehow mussed _just_ right so that strays framed her face that day, a first impression Johanna recalled so clearly. Her eyes were electric, intensity masked by cautiousness.

Katniss was the type of girl who carried an energy off innocence but didn't realize it, even when others could practically smell it on her, most freshmen were like that, sheltered, but not quite to the extent that she was.

Johanna had used it to her advantage, mocked her every chance she got, masqueraded as confident to get a reaction from the girl, most things she did in her company were to make her uncomfortable, it became a game to Johanna, even going as far as to enlist the help of others. But the girl seemed so frustratingly _unaffected_ by it after the start. Her energy evolved into a sort of smugness when she figured out her intentions, like she was playing the game too, that in turn brought a cavalier attitude, not buying into her antics, and finally a focussedness once the school year started, which brought an end to those jabs at Katniss and began a different approach, plain rudeness, a desperate measure that made her treat the girl just like anyone else.

She'd learned through others (The primary source being Finnick, who'd quickly charmed and befriended the girl and took her under his wing.) that Katniss was from the east coast, which had bothered Johanna in a way she couldn't explain. It'd made her feel almost unstable, threatened, but Johanna hadn't even originated from the east coast herself, she'd just been moved there, it wasn't her home but Johanna felt territorial about it instead of feeling a sense of kinship with the girl, if anything it should have been a role reversal between them.

She'd wondered how the girl had gotten into the school, considering the price of the out of state tuition, if her parents were loaded or if she'd gotten some sort of a scholarship. (Johanna's parents had paid for hers in full, wanting anything to get the girl out from under their roof as soon as she was legal, it was a win-win for Johanna.) That was a mystery she had never figured out, never bothered to ask, nor did the girl bother to tell.

Her fascination with the girl had quickly developed into almost a competition, Johanna's insecurities feeding her envy towards Katniss, Johanna knew in her bones that what she and Finnick had couldn't be replicated (even when it came to him and Annie) and she knew in a way that he would never try to make her feel replaceable, and yet she still got that nagging feeling.

Katniss had always knocked Johanna off her balance, where she inspired others she made Johanna feel almost insignificant, even if she would never admit it.

She was bite-sized snippets of thoughts that could never string together to form a complete sentence, a lack of flow, bullet points, a check list.

And Katniss, Katniss was eloquence, a passage written that resonated, one that stuck.

Johanna knew that they were similar, two sides of the same coin in a way, or so she'd been told.

And she'd thought about it a lot, tried to shake the girl loose, especially after some of their encounters in particular, but she _couldn't._ She was constantly on her mind, made her home there, a permanent dwelling.

It was almost comical, how months later she was in the same state, restless with lingering thoughts of the girl, she wondered if she had ever had that effect on Katniss, or anyone for that matter and she decided it was impossible.

Her phone buzzed to life, interrupting her thoughts and glowing with a new message from Finnick.

_1477 Evergreen Ave. Said she'd be ready for p/u @ noon._

**Author's Note:**

> hey, everyone, i hope you enjoyed this one, this was just meant to set the scene for the rest of the story. this is going to be a multi-chapter story, probably updated bi-weekly or weekly depending on how much time i have with school starting next week. i don't know how many chapters yet but if i get a good response i'll make sure to make it worth your while. please leave me some feedback here or over at pinebundles on tumblr, i'd love to hear what you have to say about it or what you'd like to see in future chapters! thank you so much, for reading, you can find updates for this story under the tumblr tag "joniss rt au"


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